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Wednesday, 8 February 2012

Japans Tsunami

On March 11th 2011 an
earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 devastated Japan. The earthquake
lasted about 3-5 minutes. On March 9th 2011 four
foreshocks were reported, the magnitude of these was quite high as
well (6.0, 6.1, 6.1 and 7.2). The total number of aftershocks
reported was 401. People believe that Honshu Island moved 2.4 meters
also Japan’s time changed by 1.8microseconds due to the strength of
the earthquake. Sendai was one of the worst hit cities, the residents
of Sendai only had 8-10 minutes to evacuate before the tsunami
struck. On April 7th 2011 there was another aftershock
with a magnitude of 7.1 this caused the number of houses without
power to rise from about 159,000 to more than 3.2 million.

Kuniko Suzuki said
“I kept saying in my head please stop, please stop now, please”,
Kuniko Suzuki was caught in the tsunami, luckily a roof came towards
her and she mannaged to get on top of it.

Shinsuke Itoh said
“i ran outside but was unable to stay standing up because the
ground was shaking so much, I got down on my hands and knees and
waited for it to pass”, Yuichi Owada said “the earthquake was
extremly long so i thought a tsunami would come”.

In a recent questionnaire when asked
what was your reaction to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan?

38% of the participants said that they
were shocked by the earthquake and tsunami and 15% of the
participants were sympathizing with the people who got injured and
people who lost relatives. 100% of the participants of the
questionnaire were able to give a statement about the earthquake and/
or tsunami whereas when they were asked about the Fukushima power
plant only 50% could provide a statement for the question what was
your reaction to the threat that Fukushima power plant would explode?
Out of the 50%, 30% said they were worried, 10% said that they were
shocked and the final 10% said the events were tragic. The
participants were also asked did you follow the news the week of the
tsunami and earthquake so you could find out what was happening in
Japan? 90% of the participants said that they watched the news at
some point to find out the situation in Japan. The participants were
also asked 19,294 people were killed in the earthquake and tsunami
and a further 15,844 are still missing did you think at the time the
amount of people that would be harmed by the events would be this
high? Only 20% thought that the death toll and missing persons would
rise as high as 35,138, this data shows that the events that occurred
on March 11th 2011 were far worse than most people
anticipated.

Linda a woman who lived in Japan for
a while was kind enough to be interviewed.

What was your reaction to the
earthquake and tsunami in Japan?

Total horror, I remember thinking my
husband once cycled through that town.

I have lots of friends in Japan, mostly
in the south but e-mailed everyone to see they were OK

What was your reaction to the threat
that Fukushima power plant would explode?

Frightening – Chernobyl all over
again. I rest my case about nuclear power! Is it safe?

Did you follow the news the week of
the tsunami and earthquake so you could find out what was happening
in Japan?

Yes, but still want to know what’s
happening now

19,294 people were killed in the
earthquake and tsunami and a further 15,844 are still missing did you
think at the time the amount of people that would be harmed by the
events would be this high?

Yes because I’ve lived in Japan, seen
evidence of tsunami and earthquakes before and know what the housing
is like

How has Japan recovered since the
events of 11th march?

Slowly but little information is
disseminated in the media

Linda also said “If any country can
cope, Japan can”

Here are some stories from the very
lucky survivors.

80 year old Sumi Abe and her 16 year
old grandson Jin Abe were trapped in their home for 9 days until Jin
was able to get out and rescuers then helped Sumi, both were
suffering from hypothermia and were hospitalized.

A four year old baby was swept away
from her parents arms, she was found 3 days later under debris, she
was alive and unharmed.

Hiromitsu shinkawa a 60 year old man
was found 10 miles out off the coast, he was on the roof of his home
for 2 days before rescuers found him.

Robert Bailey a British teacher heard a
“weird cracking noise” followed by violent shaking, he got all 42
of his students out of the school so they weren’t harmed by falling
debris, when the threat of a tsunami was clear he got his students to
safety on a nearby hill, the school was destroyed in the tsunami, the
schools other 137 students were still missing on March 18th
2011, it only took Mr. Bailey 8 minutes to get his students to
safety.